Lower King | Squid Shack | Annual Inspection | Nunijup | Gymkhana
| Trial
| Calendar
Barry Robson, winner of the advanced section of the trial on his TY175 Yamaha, was one of a larger number of bikes and riders at the 2nd annual trial. Hopefully, this was an indicator that people enjoyed the event last year and brought back more for this one. Most bought smaller dirt bikes this year, having learned from the experience of Ronnie wrestling his Harley through a section.
Hayden Pedro,
complete with milk crate, showed effortless style on a borrowed Honda
ag
bike to share the best score for the day and win the young
person's award in the standard section.
Ray Macneall (shown keeping his gnome-like beanie on while ducking
through the tank) also shared the excellent result of no points dropped
and so won the seniors section of the standard class on his RL250
Suzuki.
Guest rider Marion Floyd on a nicely turned-out Bultaco 250 was first lady rider winner, before the rains settled in to end the event a little early.
Full report from Bob Rees:
What a great day that was.The weather forecast the night before the
trials at John & Maureen McKinnon’s looked grim and although we had
a little rain during the night the morning looked promising with blue
skies...
We had a good sized group waiting at the Amity Tavern to be led to John’s place. We ended up with 11 bikes in the Trials but some bikes were used by up to three riders. It was great for owners of these bikes to offer rides to any that wanted to have a go.
John addressed the crowd and then walked us through the first of the
six sections. Prior to this Dave had a problem with his new Kawasaki
off-road bike attempting a great 180 degree wheelie. It takes some
doing and Dave nearly pulled it off, before he was off and part of the
back mudguard was off too - very spectacular.
What he was actually doing was practicing jumping over logs with his
bike, the lightness of the front end took him by surprise and if it
wasn’t for the luggage rack acting as a wheelie bar the 180 degree was
a possibility.
The sections had white and red tape markings with standard or expert
parts of the sections marked out. There were some interesting bikes
taking part with the two very impressive Bultaco trials bike ridden by
Rory and Marion, as well as Morris’ beautifully restored TL Honda (he
still has a bit more to do to finish it off, but couldn’t resist the
opportunity to try it out on the day).
Ray had brought his trials bike on a trailer, as had Ross and Neil.
The rest of the bikes were ridden to John's, these ranged from farm to
trail bikes.
The six sections were very well thought out and all offered
something different - John had certainly put a bit of time organising
it. The idea is to ride the section without putting your feet down, or
stalling the bike, points are lost if you do - the winner is the one
with the least amount of points.
We had a great time, whether you could master the sections or not.
There were no other mishaps except for a bike falling on a helmet
(sidestand sunk in the ground) and a rotating footrest.
We had competed the full six sections and were doing another round
before calling it a day and having lunch. With only two sections to go
the second time around it started raining, so it was decided to run for
the verandah where the BBQ and urn were.
John was working out who the winners were as we cooked our lunches.
The winners were: Best Lady - Marion, Best expert - Barry, Best
Standard - Ray, and best young rider - Hayden. Neither Hayden nor Ray
put their foot down once or lost a point.
John and Maureen had very generously donated 4 bottles of wine to
the winners. But I think we were all winners on the day, thoroughly
enjoying it and looking forward to the next time.
Thanks again John all your work was very much appreciated and thanks to Garry for lending his bike to me.